The Fifth Workshop on Military Applications of Underwater Glider Technology (5WMAUGT) was heldThe Fifth Workshop on Military Applications of Underwater Glider Technology (5WMAUGT) was heldat the NATO STO CMRE facilities in Italy for NATO and its nations. It took place from the 13th to the15th of November 2018, under the sponsorship of NATO Allied Command Transformation (ACT).The 5WMAUGT gathered more than 50 participants, of whom 80 percent came from outside CMRE. Thisyear’s event saw a significant increase in military participation. This denotes a great interest of NATOnations in the underwater glider technology. The attendees came from more than 30 different institutions,organizations and companies. Five NATO entities (HQ, ACT, SHAPE, MARCOM and CMRE); sevenNATO nations (CAN, DEU, FRA, GBR, ITA, NOR and USA); and one NATO Euro-Atlantic PartnershipCouncil (EAPC) nation (FIN) were represented in the workshop.This document assembles the agenda, list of participants, abstracts of the presentations and mostimportantly, the outcomes of the discussion session that will help CMRE and NATO nations better defineR&D activities regarding underwater glider technology in the near future.

The NATO STO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation, as part of its mission to put forward the technological maritime research, with the support of the European Union's Horizon 2020 Programme has organized on May 9-10, 2018, the Maritime Big Data Workshop (MBDW). The workshop gathered together researchers, technological providers and members of the operational community to exchange their experience on Big Data innovations for maritime security, safety and security of maritime navigation and transport, sustainable fisheries and exploitation of ocean resources. For two days, 37 researchers and experts from Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal, South Africa, and Vietnam presented their work and main findings on Maritime and Big Data, including the outcomes of 6 ongoing Maritime Big Data projects and initiatives funded by the European Union: datAcron, MARISA, Ranger, EUCISE, AtlantOS, EMODnet. The workshop's results enable to draw some preliminary conclusions on the current research and developments in Maritime Big Data. There is a general interest towards concrete societal and operational needs, coupled with an emerging tendency to develop methods combining heterogeneous, potentially complementary, information streams (mainly AIS, paired with SAR, Radar, METOC, acoustic), with an increasing attention towards source quality. The approaches adopted come from different areas of research, mainly machine learning and data mining, incorporating also techniques developed in Information and data fusion, but also data warehouse and online analytical processing. The current trend towards experimenting open source Big Data technologies is challenged by the integration of diversified sources of information, which comes with an increased exigence of enhanced data management capabilities for harmonised data sharing and processing that can overcome the sole exploitation of kinematic data. Meanwhile, there is a prevailing requirement to reduce the uncertainty of detection and prediction results, entailing the development of capabilities to formally handle information and source quality. Analogously, the emergence of novel Artificial Intelligence approaches that, despite showing promising results, challenge results' interpretation, requires an increased involvement of experts in all the phases of the development (the so-called "Human in the loop"), and the holistic incorporation of approaches addressing human factors' aspects.

The Decision Support and Risk Assessment for Operational Effectiveness (DeSRA) 2017 Conference Proceedings contain the peer-reviewed abstracts accepted for this conference. The DeSRA 2017 Conference took place at the NATO STO CMRE facilities in La Spezia, Italy, on 2-4 October 2017. Its overarching objective was to bring together personnel from the military, civilian, industry and research communities to discuss and identify environmental risks, planning shortfalls and ways-ahead to assist decision makers and improve operational effectiveness. These Conference Proceedings contain a total of 27 abstracts covering all the topics of the conference, such as: Recognized Environmental Picture (REP) and Risk Assessment; Environmental Information Flow for Decision Support and Command and Control (C2); Maritime Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (MISR); and Operational Experimentation (OPEX) Opportunities. Researchers and industry were exposed to real challenges faced in operations from the military and civilian organizations/institutions participating. Besides the speakers of the 27 Abstracts published in these proceedings, additional military and civilian personnel attended the DeSRA 2017 Conference to learn about state-of-the-art techniques and systems on the topics of the conference. They also had the opportunity to make contributions and influence the development of these techniques and systems. A total of 2 NATO bodies: ACO/SHAPE and STO CMRE, and 20 institutions/organizations from 13 NATO and Partner nations: 1 CAN, 2 DEU, 1 DNK, 2 ESP, 4 FRA, 2 GBR, 4 ITA, 1 NLD, 1 NOR, 1 NZL, 1 USA, participated in this NATO STO CMRE-lead conference. Details of the contributions made by the participants are incorporated in the Abstracts provided in these DeSRA 2017 Conference Proceedings.

The Decision Support and Risk Assessment for Operational Effectiveness (DeSRA) 2016 Conference Proceedings contain the peer-reviewed abstracts accepted for this conference. The DeSRA 2016 Conference took place at NATO STO CMRE facilities on 26-28 July 2016. Its overarching objective was to bring together personnel from the military, civilian, industry and research communities to discuss and identify environmental risks, planning shortfalls and ways-ahead to assist decision makers and improve operational effectiveness. These Conference Proceedings contain a total of 31 abstracts covering most of the topics set as objectives for the conference, such as: Recognized Environmental Picture (REP); Information representation, visualization and communication; Environmental prediction and risk analysis/assessment strategies; Decision support; NATO Environmental Functional Services (EnvFS); and Approaches for validation and verification (V&V). Researchers and industry were exposed to real challenges faced in operations from the military- and civilian-lead presentations. Besides the speakers of the 31 Abstracts published in these proceedings, additional military and civilian personnel attended the DeSRA 2016 Conference to learn about state-of-the-art techniques and systems on the topics of the conference. They also had the opportunity to make contributions and influence the development of these techniques and systems. A total of 4 NATO bodies: ACO/SHAPE, ACT, STO CMRE, CoE CSW, and 21 institutions/organizations from 10 different nations: 1 BEL, 2 CAN, 1 DEU, 3 ESP, 1 FRA, 3 GBR, 4 ITA, 1 NLD, 2 PRT, 3 USA, participated in this NATO STO CMRE-lead conference. Institutions/organizations, such as, ACT and ACO with keynote speeches, and, among others, NATO CoE CSW, the Italian, Portuguese and Spanish Navies, US NRL, DRDC, Dstl, Met Office, AEMET, Fraunhofer, Mines ParisTech University, Raytheon, made important contributions in the conference. Some of these contributions are summarized in the published Abstracts found in these DeSRA 2016 Conference Proceedings.

This workshop report briefly overviews the meeting presentations and lists major findings and recommendations from the two-day event. Eighteen participants attended the meeting, including representatives from NURC, MOC Naples, the Turkish Navy, ACT NATO, and the European Space Agency (ESA). The following aspects of the experiment were addressed: * Results of the operational analysis; * Network architecture and data collection; * Moc Operations; * Multi-sensor fusion; * Anomaly detection; * Analysis of AIS intermittency; * SAR ship detection. Further, an overview on the recent HF radar experiment in the Ligurian Sea was given. A CD-ROM containing the workshop presentations can be requested from This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

NURC hosted specialist workshop on Non-lethal Response Technologies in Port Protection at its facilities, 1-3 April 2009. The workshop drew over seventy participants from twelve NATO and Partner for Peace (PfP) nations, representing a cross section of stakeholders, including national labs (28 % attendees), operational community (27 %), industry (32 %), NATO organizations (13 %). The presentations and discussions proved the multi-disciplinary nature of port protection on the water side. Topics focused mainly on countering small boat threats and underwater intruders, the readiness of new technologies, independent technical evaluations, the use of marine mammals for interdicting intruders, experimentation methodologies, unmanned response technologies, and entanglements for countering small boats. The presentations made to the workshop and concluding remarks are compiled in these proceedings.

NURC hosted a workshop on innovative solutions for sea mine disposal "Sea Mine Countermeasures: Exploring Neutralisation Options", 14-15 April 2009. Twenty-seven people representing ten different NATO nations from the operational (military), academic, government labs, and industry communities attended the workshop. The challenges and problems in mine neutralisation caused by sea currents, surge, and other environmental factors were covered in several presentations. Since different situations require different options, participants concluded that there is a need for a toolbox of modular autonomous systems. New candidate technologies for effective remote delivery of mine neutralisation weapons were reviewed, including non-traditional (non-explosive) approaches. The focus was on lowering costs without sacrificing key performance, especially in countering modern sea mines. Remote mine neutralization options may also be utilised in areas where conventional mine disposal systems are ineffective due to constraints of water depth or manoeuvering room. The workshop also identified partners for collaborative research and the establishment of a joint research project (JRP) on this topic. The presentations made to the workshop and the summary are compiled in these proceedings.

Proceedings of the NURC Underwater Intruder Workshop. NURC-CP-2006-002. July 2006.

Projects in harbour protection are getting underway in several NATO nations. To augment the value for NATO of these efforts NURC has undertaken to coordinate a Joint Research Project (JRP), for information exchange, threat analysis, and concept development, as well as for collaborative development, testing, and evaluation of emerging technologies. NURC hosted an Underwater Intruder Workshop to bring prospective JRP partners together, to present work underway and planned in member-country programs and to identify common work elements for future collaboration. Twenty-seven participants from eight countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, United Kingdom, United States) and NURC attended. These are the presentations and records of discussion from that workshop.

Proceedings of the NATO Workshop on Multistatic Operations Research. NURC-CP-2006-001. November 2005 (Published January 2006).

This workshop brought together experts in operations research, multistatic systems research, and military ASW operations in order to exchange information on Multistatic OR/OA studies, tools and methodologies, and the development of multistatic CONOPS.